sufism, sodomy, math
in commemoration of finishing my math project ("a graphical and algebraic functional analysis of cell phone service plans"), which was every bit as exciting as you'd guess, i decided to indulge some vicarious drunken revelry in the form of the pogues' "rum, sodomy, and the lash." why vicarious? because i have trig to do (solar greenhouse design and straight-up book trig as well) and my left brain is handicapped enough as it is. so the pogues got me thinking about pirates (actual pirates, not romanticized media constructs), which got me thinking about hakim bey's appendices to temporary autonomous zones, ontological anarchy, and poetic terrorism where he quotes captain bellamy. instead, while digging for that passage, I find this:
"as for the anarchist movement today: would we like just once to stand on ground where laws are abolished & the last priest is strung up with the guts of the last bureaucrat? yeah sure. but we're not holding our breath. there are certain causes (to quote the neech again) that one fails to quite abandon, if only because of the sheer insipidity of all their enemies. oscar wilde might have said that one cannot be a gentleman without being something of an anarchist--a necessary paradox, like n's "radical aristocratism."
...which totally ties a bunch of my favorite things together: nietzsche, wilde, anarchism, and the dandiacal iteration of the gentleman. somehow, though, even if i'd stumbled across this prior to my wilde essay, i don't think i could've quoted the intoxicated ramblings of a neo-sufi mystic as a credible source. a damn shame.
my current english project: using google search queries as source material. not as links, but as the actual cultural artifact itself. i can't decide if it's intellectual laziness, meta wankery, or something valid.
so for those interested in the pirate speech i mentioned up there, you can find it behind the cut. it's very much
PIRATE RANT
Captain Bellamy
Daniel Defoe, writing under the pen name Captain Charles Johnson, wrote what became the first standard historical text on pirates, A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates. According to Patrick Pringle's Jolly Roger, pirate recruitment was most effective among the unemployed, escaped bondsmen, and transported criminals. The high seas made for an instantaneous levelling of class inequalities. Defoe relates that a pirate named Captain Bellamy made this speech to the captain of a merchant vessel he had taken as a prize. The captain of the merchant vessel had just declined an invitation to join the pirates.
I am sorry they won't let you have your sloop again, for I scorn to do any one a mischief, when it is not to my advantage; damn the sloop, we must sink her, and she might be of use to you. Though you are a sneaking puppy, and so are all those who will submit to be governed by laws which rich men have made for their own security; for the cowardly whelps have not the courage otherwise to defend what they get by knavery; but damn ye altogether: damn them for a pack of crafty rascals, and you, who serve them, for a parcel of hen-hearted numbskulls. They vilify us, the scoundrels do, when there is only this difference, they rob the poor under the cover of law, forsooth, and we plunder the rich under the protection of our own courage. Had you not better make then one of us, than sneak after these villains for employment?
When the captain replied that his conscience would not let him break the laws of God and man, the pirate Bellamy continued:
You are a devilish conscience rascal, I am a free prince, and I have as much authority to make war on the whole world, as he who has a hundred sail of ships at sea, and an army of 100,000 men in the field; and this my conscience tells me: but there is no arguing with such snivelling puppies, who allow superiors to kick them about deck at pleasure.
"as for the anarchist movement today: would we like just once to stand on ground where laws are abolished & the last priest is strung up with the guts of the last bureaucrat? yeah sure. but we're not holding our breath. there are certain causes (to quote the neech again) that one fails to quite abandon, if only because of the sheer insipidity of all their enemies. oscar wilde might have said that one cannot be a gentleman without being something of an anarchist--a necessary paradox, like n's "radical aristocratism."
...which totally ties a bunch of my favorite things together: nietzsche, wilde, anarchism, and the dandiacal iteration of the gentleman. somehow, though, even if i'd stumbled across this prior to my wilde essay, i don't think i could've quoted the intoxicated ramblings of a neo-sufi mystic as a credible source. a damn shame.
my current english project: using google search queries as source material. not as links, but as the actual cultural artifact itself. i can't decide if it's intellectual laziness, meta wankery, or something valid.
so for those interested in the pirate speech i mentioned up there, you can find it behind the cut. it's very much
PIRATE RANT
Captain Bellamy
Daniel Defoe, writing under the pen name Captain Charles Johnson, wrote what became the first standard historical text on pirates, A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates. According to Patrick Pringle's Jolly Roger, pirate recruitment was most effective among the unemployed, escaped bondsmen, and transported criminals. The high seas made for an instantaneous levelling of class inequalities. Defoe relates that a pirate named Captain Bellamy made this speech to the captain of a merchant vessel he had taken as a prize. The captain of the merchant vessel had just declined an invitation to join the pirates.
I am sorry they won't let you have your sloop again, for I scorn to do any one a mischief, when it is not to my advantage; damn the sloop, we must sink her, and she might be of use to you. Though you are a sneaking puppy, and so are all those who will submit to be governed by laws which rich men have made for their own security; for the cowardly whelps have not the courage otherwise to defend what they get by knavery; but damn ye altogether: damn them for a pack of crafty rascals, and you, who serve them, for a parcel of hen-hearted numbskulls. They vilify us, the scoundrels do, when there is only this difference, they rob the poor under the cover of law, forsooth, and we plunder the rich under the protection of our own courage. Had you not better make then one of us, than sneak after these villains for employment?
When the captain replied that his conscience would not let him break the laws of God and man, the pirate Bellamy continued:
You are a devilish conscience rascal, I am a free prince, and I have as much authority to make war on the whole world, as he who has a hundred sail of ships at sea, and an army of 100,000 men in the field; and this my conscience tells me: but there is no arguing with such snivelling puppies, who allow superiors to kick them about deck at pleasure.